Pratique

The application of two weights and two measures when some media sources comment on the governing PN and on the Labour Opposition is proceeding at full blast. Some of my friends still chafe at this unfairness; many moons have passed since I got used to it. Indeed probably, I would fail to recognise the political landscape were it to be any different. Take the recent (?) stance adopted by the PN and its media associates that Labour is negative, negative, period. Yet if one follows what representatives of the ruling party have said in past months about Labour's policy papers on a plan for economic and social recovery, and what PN spokesmen stated in Parliament during the ongoing budget debates, one cannot but be impressed by the totally negative content of their discourse.

According to these spokesmen, whatever Labour does or says is meaningless, deceptive, wrong or already being carried out by the government. Hardly anybody on the side of the "independent" media ever remarks about this.

What's new? I ask my friends. It has always been so. Whenever Labour won elections, it was not because the party got support from The Times and similar press institutions, but despite their strictures, apologias and relentless criticism. Which is then the reason why the same media have little to no leverage with the left in terms of policy making. When such institutions persist in a relentless knock-you-down-at-all-costs mode, it is natural to discount what they have to say by a huge margin, indeed to take their views at the obverse of face value. A pity, but there it is. So it has been, so it will be.

The current round of speechifying in Parliament about the 2007 budget serves as an illustration. One can say whatever one likes about the statements made by the Opposition. But to claim that government spokesmen have been straightforward about the success or otherwise of government policies really stretches credulity to breaking point.

Take the clarification which I made in Parliament regarding Labour's policy about the introduction of the euro. Anybody who had followed with some attention what Labour spokesmen had stated - Charles Mangion, George Vella and myself among others - would have understood that what I said in Parliament merely amounted to a crossing of the 't's and a dotting of the 'i's over our statements of these past months. We had stated repeatedly that: under Malta's EU membership obligations, the euro had to be introduced in replacement of the lira; the date selected by government was premature and we disagreed with it; once that date had been set and settled, the country needed to implement the decision with its best foot forward. The only thing that had changed since the summer was the election fever generated in September by the PN's secretary general Joe Saliba. Some were predicting an early election, as of March next year. So, Labour needed to spell out what it would do next year, were the PN to follow up on Mr Saliba's scenarios. That had to be done with the national interest in mind. The spin that Labour had carried out "another U-turn" was predictable and risible.

Meanwhile, a major divide between Opposition Labour and the governing PN is still being ignored. It is about the direction of economic and financial policy. Labour was the first to prioritise the need to put public finances on a sound footing. We did this back in 1997, following the super-record of Lm188 million deficit chalked up by the PN government in 1996. Therefore, Labour lacks no credibility in this area.

But life moves on. We are now in a situation where the economy has been left to splutter for too long. It needs to be given a new shot of life. This has to be seen as the priority if we are to create new jobs for our young people, if we are to sustain the jobs we have, if we are to beat back the inflation that has been undermining our competitiveness and our creative energies.

The Gonzi administration is following a different approach. It is giving everybody to understand that it has repented of the "money no problem" policies followed for long years. More importantly, it must convince the EU Commission that this repentance is genuine. Like a ship after being subjected to quarantine, it needs a pratique, a licence to have dealings with the port it wishes to enter.

The only target has become that of achieving a clean bill of health, in terms of the public deficit as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product. That aim cannot be faulted, by itself. At least we have consensus on the need to establish financial probity in running the nation's affairs. But ALL by itself, it is not enough. Indeed, ALL by itself such a target could create worse problems than those it sets out to resolve.

For if on top of the high tax and inefficient taxation structures with which our society is lumbered, we weigh in with policies that inhibit economic growth, or that ignore the need to promote such growth, then we are merely compounding problems.

Unfortunately that is what the Gonzi administration, with its budget for 2007, is doing. Indulging in anti-Labour rants - whether subtle, slick or grotesque - is not going to change this fundamental dilemma.